Our latest “what we’re reading” draws on the stalwart print newspapers and magazines that have carried the banner of long-form narrative for so long. From a 5-part investigation of a shipwreck to a story of an athlete’s final months, these narratives show that traditional storytelling lives on. NEWSPAPERS “Laura Hillenbrand releases new book while fighting [...]
Tag Archives: Los Angeles Times
What we’re reading: gay culture in the Middle East, stories for a body held hostage, and an athlete dying young
December 2, 2010 – 1:50 pm
Statistics vs. storytelling: the grudge match?
November 19, 2010 – 11:09 am
Narrative journalism has been dogged for years by the idea that it is too subjective or somehow less capable of conveying hard numbers to the public than a traditional news story. In a world where data mining and visualizations have become more fluid and accessible, it’s no surprise that the tension between numbers and narrative [...]
L.A. Times reporter Christopher Goffard on structure, sympathy and how to make a story go: “The same thing that’s going to make people sit through a movie will make them sit through a 10,000-word series”
September 10, 2010 – 1:48 pm
For “Project 50: Four walls and a bed,” our latest Notable Narrative, reporter Christopher Goffard spent two years following a Los Angeles-area program aimed at finding the most at-risk homeless and giving them a place to live. Goffard, who has had several stories selected as Notable Narratives across the years, is also a novelist, and [...]
Christopher Goffard’s “Project 50″ and the hard-core homeless of Los Angeles
September 9, 2010 – 3:09 pm
How do you take people — ones whom your readers would cross the street to avoid — and make them compelling enough to follow through a four-part series? Christopher Goffard tackles that challenge in our latest Notable Narrative, “Project 50: Four walls and a bed,” in which he and photographer Genaro Molina report on two [...]
What we’re reading, back-to-school edition: prison voices, the failure of imagination in storytelling, and the secret diary of a hedge fund manager
September 2, 2010 – 12:57 pm
Teenage lifeguards abandon their perches to leathery veterans. The county fair’s bounty of funnel cakes and fried beer peters out. Corduroy shopping starts in earnest. The academic year begins. In honor of those entering the hallowed halls of education, reluctantly or with excitement, we offer these takes on prison, the challenges of teaching and what [...]
Ana’s Story
April 4, 2009 – 12:00 am
One side of 24 year-old Ana Rodarte’s face balloons and sags with disfiguring neurofibromatosis. Can surgery help? Los Angeles Times reporter Thomas Curwen takes on a classic medical drama and covers all the bases, following Ana, her family, and her doctors through three operations. “Ana’s Story” flirts with over-earnestness but avoids it through Curwen’s use of startling details. Ana likes [...]
Thomas Curwen interview on “Waiting for death, alone and unafraid”
April 3, 2009 – 4:21 pm
From a March 2009 email interview with Thomas Curwen: Q: How did you first meet Edwin Shneidman, and what made him interesting to you? A: I met Edwin Shneidman in 1999 when I was working on a story about suicide prevention, and in the course of that reporting, he was able to help me understand [...]
Waiting for Death, Alone and Unafraid
April 3, 2009 – 12:00 am
“Waiting for Death, Alone and Unafraid,” paints a portrait of Dr. Edwin Shneidman, a 90-year-old suicide prevention expert who longs to die. A single day provides an elegant frame for this Los Angeles Times story, in which so little action unfolds that the reader feels as if Schneidman is dying into the story—or is already [...]
